The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [595]
492 Cha dhammā sārāṇı̄yā. Ñm had rendered this expression “six memorable qualities,” which was adopted in the first edition. In this he follows the commentaries, which gloss the phrase, “fit to be remembered; not to be forgotten even with the passage of time” (saritabbayutt̄ addhāne atikkante pi na pamusitabbā). The correct derivation, however, as PED notes, is from Skt saṁran̄janı̄ya, “causing delight.”
493 MA: This is the right view belonging to the noble path.
494 The Four Noble Truths.
495 Dhammatā.
496 This is a breach of the code of monastic discipline from which a bhikkhu can be rehabilitated either by a formal act of the Sangha or by confession to another bhikkhu. Even though a noble disciple may commit such an offence unintentionally or through lack of knowledge, he makes no attempt to conceal it but immediately discloses it and seeks the means of rehabilitation.
497 See n.91.
498 MA calls those seven factors the “great reviewing knowledges” (mahāpaccavekkaṇāṇa) of a stream-enterer. On the reviewing knowledges see Vsm XXII, 19–21.
SUTTA 49
499 The Mūlapariyāya Sutta (MN 1) was also delivered by the Buddha while he was living in the Subhaga Grove at Ukkaṭṭhā, and the similarity in formulation and theme between these two suttas—perhaps the only two recorded as originating at Ukkaṭṭhā—is striking. It is even possible to see the present sutta as a dramatic representation of the same ideas set forth by the Mūlapariyāya in abstract philosophical terms. Thus Baka the Brahmā may be taken to represent being (bhava) or personality (sakkāya) in its most eminent form, blindly engaged in the activity of conceiving (maññanā), sustaining itself with its delusions of permanence, pleasure, and selfhood. Underlying being is craving, symbolised by Māra—seemingly inconspicuous in the assembly, yet the real author of all the outpourings of conceiving, the one who holds the entire universe in his grip. The alliance of Brahmā and Māra, God and Satan, an incomprehensible union from the perspective of Western theism, points to the thirst for continued being as the hidden root of all world affirmation, whether theistic or non-theistic. In the sutta the superficial theoretical contest between Baka and the Buddha soon gives way to a gripping deep-level confrontation between Māra and the Buddha—M̄ra as craving demanding the affirmation of being, the Enlightened One pointing to the cessation of being through the uprooting of delight.
500 A similar encounter between the Buddha and Baka is recorded at SN 6:4/i.142–44, though without the dramatic trappings of this meeting and with an extended exchange in verse. According to MA and Ṃ, he held this eternalist view with regard to both his own individual personality and the world over which he presided. His denial of an “escape beyond” is a rejection of the higher jhāna planes, the paths and fruits, and Nibbāna, none of which he even knows exist.
501 MA: When Māra discovered that the Buddha had gone to the Brahma-world, he became anxious that the Brahmās might be won over to the Dhamma and escape from his control; thus he went there to discourage the Buddha from teaching the Dhamma.
502 MA: Because they considered it to be impermanent, suffering, and not self.
503 MA: In the four states of deprivation. Here, and at §10 and §29, the word “body” (kāya) is used to mean plane of existence.
504 MA: They lauded it by speaking praise of it as permanent, everlasting, eternal, etc., and delighted in it by way of craving and views.
505 MA: In the Brahma-world.
506 MA: Māra’s intention is to show: “If you do as Brahmā says without overstepping his word, you too will shine with the same splendour and glory as that with which the Brahmā’s Assembly